mentioned earlier, is a case in point. It
comes with protocol stacks for all four
BLE modes: peripheral, master, observer and broadcaster. And these protocol
stacks are available as pre-compiled and
pre-linked binary files.

Software Complement

Whether your medical wearable design
is based on a highly-integrated module
or you are going for a custom board
built around a wireless SoC, the software ecosystem encompassing sample
applications, programming guides, and
reference designs plays a vital role.

Reference design kits allow developers to quickly get onboard to the BLE
and Wi-Fi learning curve in wearable
environments. A robust software design
also reduces the load on RF subsystem
and trims down the memory requirements and power consumption.

But first things first. For starters,
make sure that there is ample processing power to run unique medical
algorithms. The processing cores in
wireless chipsets range from basic
ARM® Cortex®-M0 to more powerful ARM Cortex-R4, depending on
the compute power that fitness and
healthcare algorithms need to run on a
wearable design.

For instance, the protocol stack for
Bluetooth 5, comprising of host stack,
link layer up to the GAP/GATT level
and a set of services and profiles, can
take as much as 40 Kbyte of ROM and
2. 5 Kbyte of RAM while running on an
ARM Cortex M0 processor.

Like modules, wireless SoC solutions
also offer a rich library of APIs that can
help you develop your own protocol
stack. And these software tools ensure
a clear separation between work
related to the protocol stack and the
application code.

Next, there are libraries for sensor
fusion that help developers create more
meaningful outputs while reducing
the streams of raw data. That, in turn,
reduces power consumption and memory footprint. It’s worth noting that
data transmission is the major source
of power consumption in wearable
designs.

KnowYourProtocolsANT: An ultra-low-power wirelesscommunications protocol that oper-ates in the 2. 4 Hz range and is ubiqui-tous in sports and fitness applications.https://developer.garmin.com/ant-pro-gram/features/Bluetooth 5: The latest version ofBluetooth standard, announced inDecember 2016, that offers significantenhancements in speed, range andpower consumption as compared to itspredecessor Bluetooth 4. 2.https://www.bluetooth.com/specifi-cations/bluetooth-core-specification/bluetooth5Thread 1.1: The revamp of the originalwireless mesh networking protocol de-signed to connect hundreds of devicesto each other and the cloud.https://threadgroup.org/ThreadSpec

The RF design expertise is in short
supply, especially for smaller design footprints like medical wearables. That’s why
RF silicon suppliers like Cypress, Dialog,
Nordic, and TI are providing modules,
development kits and reference designs
built around their SoCs to ensure that
wireless connectivity is easily incorporated into medical wearables.

So take a good look at your application, and subsequently the RF design
requirements, and match that to what’s
on offer as a software complement
alongside a wireless module or an SoC
device. For example, how a design kit
supports peripheral operations or helps
create custom BLE profiles.

Even if you have limited resources or
experience in RF design, highly-integrated modules and very powerful SoCs enable you to add wireless connectivity to
your fitness and clinical-grade wearable
designs. MDT